Happy new year! Where's your resolutions?

Happy new year everyone. May 2012 bring you whatever you want… oh! But what a poor choice of words! May you have or develop the ability to go get whatever you want.

Because this is the real way of getting things for yourself. Go out there and get it. Reach it. Work for it. Make it happen. Because if you don’t, nobody will. Not even God. And if you believe in God and rely on prayers to get what you want… good luck. There is a saying that goes like this “Help yourself and God will help you”. So you see? You actually have to move your ass first. Then God comes… may be.
So at the end of the day it all comes to… action!

Have you taken your resolutions for this year? I know I didn’t. I don’t believe in resolutions anymore. Instead I set objectives to myself. And to make sure to achieve the objectives by year end, a good strategy is to use the SMART principle.

SMART states that and objective must be
S imple
M easurable
A chievable
R ealistic
T ime-bound

Lets take my own 2012 objectives as an example. The objectives I want to achieve in 2012 are as follow:
- Get abs of steal.
- Set-up one alternate source of income (other than my day job) and generate 1000$ of income out of it.
- Reimburse 5000$ of my 20 000$ loan that I carry as a heavy weight on my ankle.

That’s it! Three objectives only. But three life changing objectives for me. When I get my abs of steal, I will dramatically change my physical look. When I set-up my alternate source of income and generate 1000$ per month out of it, I will be achieving two things. First I will prove to myself that it is possible to make money by other means but prostitution in a corporate cubicle. And second I will be on my way to financial freedom. 

The first step will be made. And fanally if I reimburse 5000$ out of my 20 000$ loan I will be much less in debt and prove to myself that I’m on the right path to financial freedom.

So mainly I have two goals: My body and my finance. But you see. Goals are more general thus less specific than objectives. If I say “I want to improve my finances”. That’s a goal. But how are you going to achieve you goal? That is why I prefer to set objectives.

And as you can see they are simple: I want a 6 pacs (abs); I want 1000$ per month out of some other source than my corporate slavery; I want 5000$ less on my loan.

They also are measurable. If I track my belly by picturing it every week (which I will do) and if I measure it too, and put myself on the balance. I will track my weight in general and my abs in particular. Same thing with my financial goal. If I see the balance of my loan getting down by 5000$ I will know that I’ve had achieved my goal. And if I raise 200$ from an alternative source on the first month, then 500$ on the second month then I track my process and on my way to achieve my third objective.

My goals are realistic too. I didn’t say that I want to reimburse my loan of 20 000$ in like two months. Or that I want to lose 80 pounds of weight in 4 months. My objectives are also achievable because they are realistic.

There is one thing remaining. Time line. Because it is one thing to state “I want to lose weight”. It is another to say “I want to lose 10 pounds”. And it is a whole other ball game to say “I want to lose 10 pounds within 5 months”.

So here it is:

- I want my abs of steal by may 1st
- I want 1000$ alternate revenue by September 2th
- I want to reimburse 5000$ of my loan by December 18th

So here it is.  How about you?